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Editing Fundamentals II: Recurrent Words

A
silly quote by Lemony Snicket always pops into my head when I am
thinking about repetition in writing: “Don’t
repeat yourself. It’s not only repetitive, it’s redundant, and
people have heard it before.”

And
today I am going to write about another thing to take out of your
writing: reoccurring words. We've all read those sentences in which
the same hapless adjective is employed multiple times. Here is an
example of what I mean:

A
dark night had settled on the city. When Thaddeus Sprig, the
country's most wanted thief slipped out of the alley, he was nothing
but a dark shadow skulking in the dark street. His dark coat matched
the dark plans in his head. . . .

The
word “dark” is starting to sound a little odd. And it is getting
boring.The following paragraph is an example
how one word can be replaced with several different ones.

A
moonless night had settled on the city. When Thaddeus Sprig, the
country's most wanted thief slipped out of the alley, he was nothing
but an obscure shadow skulking in the murky street. His black coat
matched the sinister plans in his head. . . .

When
a word is used again and again it is tedious and insipid. It loses
its impact. Every author can be guilty of this. But it is
understandable; sometimes it is all you can do to get a description
written, or get a point across, and never mind making it sound
elegant. I find myself doing this often. However, it is not a problem
if you edit later. Once the piece is finished, read it again and keep
a sharp eye out for redundant words and replace them. Using a
thesaurus during this step can be a big help.

This
is one of the smaller chores in editing, but I find it can go a long
way in making a piece more polished and readable.